Archive for the 'Playboy' Tag Under 'The Watcher' Category

Kendracomes on the phone and tells us she's getting her nails done and laying out and ho-hum we think because what else is a Playboy model-turned- serial-reality-TV- star going to be doing on a mid-week afternoon?

“TV, it's natural for me to do,” Kendra says. “It's so natural because I'm natural. Being on TV is something I never dreamed of doing, it just fell into my lap. But I'm just a very open, free-spirited person – I care, but I don't care, you know what I'm saying?”

Yeah, we think we know what you're saying, especially after watching a few clips of the new show that features life with Kendra, her husband Hank Baskett III, recently retired from a career in the NFL, and their 2-year-old son Little Hank.

April 26th, 2012, 12:00 am by PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Nikki Leigh says she was always a nosy little kid, and as soon as her parents would leave the house she'd go looking for things she wasn't exactly supposed to find. Which is how, more than a decade ago, she started reading her father's Playboy magazines, flipping through the pages, admiring the models' beauty.

“It wasn't until I was about 13 and I was getting cockier that I started going, ‘You know, I'm going to do that,'” says the 23-year-old Cypress native who graduates from California State University, Fullerton in May with an honors degree in sociology. “I remember in the kitchen one day saying, ‘Dad, I'm going to be a Playmate,' and he was like, ‘Yeah, Nicole, whatever you say.' And lo and behold.”

Lo and behold, Miss May, the reigning Playmate of the Month, a woman who never tried to model, never even considered posing for a photographer, clothed or not, until one day last summer that long-ago boast came back to mind.

“It was really random,” Leigh says of how she ended up as the magazine centerfold. “I was in Texas, visiting a friend, and he kind of left and I thought, ‘What the heck?' So I was really bored and I went on Facebook and saw that a friend of mine from high school had a little Playboy bunny in the corner of her photos.”

January 7th, 2012, 12:00 am by PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Despite what one might think, Playboydoesn't have a specific "type," its casting chief says, which means that blondes and brunettes and redheads of a decent range of ages, shapes and sizes all get a shot at appearing in print, on TV or online for the iconic men's magazine.

And occasionally, Playboy heads out to search for fresh faces in different parts of the country, which, to get to the point here, means that if you're an Orange County woman who's comfortable in your own skin, and not necessarily much more than your own skin, you might want to head Costa Mesa for an open casting call on Monday.

"It's chaotic, but it's great," says Stacy Collins, the Playboy executive editor responsible for casting. "There could be college students, there could be fitness trainers. There could be hot housewives.

"I look at this as a grassroots initiative of bringing Playboy to the masses," Collins says. "To women who have maybe thought they have Playboy potential but never had a chance to test it out."

“When I was in high school, I would always get the Playboy magazines and I would always try to do my hair and makeup like them,” Toth told us when we spoke on the phone the other day. “I would just collect the magazines and I knew I wanted to be one of those girls one day.”

The dream came true this week when the new issue of Playboy hit the newsstands with Toth featured as Miss September, the Playmate of the Month.

“I just liked that they were confident, girl-next-door bombshells,” the 25-year-old says when asked why she admired the Playmates so much as a teen. “I knew I wanted to do Playboy when I was older, so when I was 19, I went to the Playboy studios and took Polaroids, and they called me back.

September 23rd, 2010, 9:24 pm by PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Rachel Lorraine, a 21-year-old women's studies major at UCLAknows that some people will look at her nude photo in Playboyand wonder how that fits with her self-professed interest in topics such as feminism.

"I just explain that you should be proud of your body and yourself and if you want to take off your clothes and feel liberated or however you want to put it, then it's your choice," says Lorraine, who grew up in Laguna Beach, graduating from Laguna Beach High School in 2007.

"You shouldn't have somebody else tell you what's right or wrong," says Lorraine, whose photo in the October issue's "Girls of the PAC 10" is her first time appearing in the original Playboy, though she's previously been featured in Playboy's "Sexy Summer Girls," a special issue put out by the men's magazine.

"I think girls are beautiful and I'm definitely about girl power and women's rights. I don't see a conflict with it."

Katie Vernola had barely left high school in San Clemente last year when a photographer she was working for as a model asked her if she'd ever thought about posing for Playboy magazine.

"It was all a very quick process," the 18-year-old says, sounding still a bit awestruck by what happened next. "I'm doing some work with a photographer and he asked me, and I'd already planned for it, so I was like, 'Yeah, let's do it!'

"It was always something I wanted to do," Vernola says. "I just jumped on it right away."